


cover your eyes (do i feel right, darling?)

by kattyshack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Jealousy, Romance, Secret Identity, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Stealing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2018-11-30 22:52:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11473332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattyshack/pseuds/kattyshack
Summary: Jon Snow’s arrival at the Vale is met with trepidation and intrigue; after all, what could this bastard-come-prince want in this far-off corner of his kingdom? But Jon has heard the whispers that the Eyrie’s prized beauty is not a bastard of Littlefinger’s at all, but the daughter of Winterfell—and Jon means to steal her away.





	1. you came back into my arms (like a heart attack)

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: if you have questions about the timeline here, i immediately and unashamedly confess that i don’t have answers. just heed the “canon divergence” tag and we’ll all get through this together. on that note, i’ve aged jon and sansa up considerably (think along the lines of 19 and 22) because this is gonna get smutty and i don’t wanna make it weird

Storm-grey eyes sweep the crowd gathered in the Eyrie’s courtyard. Lords and ladies and servants alike have come to greet his arrival, but there is only one who Jon Snow seeks out—among these thorns, one winter rose he longs to see. He has heard the whispers come down from this high mountain sanctuary, and he has braved its perils to learn the truth and bring her home.

As he dismounts, his gaze catches a flash of auburn in the sun.

It’s gone as quickly as it appeared, like a candle flame snuffed out in one harried but sure breath. Swirling clouds block the cool white sunlight, and the girl’s hair is a drab brown once more. But her eyes… Even from a distance, Jon could drown in them. Those are Tully eyes. And there is no mistaking that self-assured, surely subconscious lift of her chin. She may play at this bastard masquerade, but she would never forget her true place, of this Jon is sure.

Before he can do more than hold her gaze, Yohn Royce has bustled forth to greet him properly. Jon snaps from his daze to give the man his attention.

“Your Grace.” Royce bends in a low bow, then straightens with a welcoming smile. “You honor us with your visit. I trust your journey was well?”

“As well as can be expected.” Jon gives his horse’s reins to a waiting stablehand. “The Eyrie is a formidable fortress. I can’t imagine a man who has fallen within its walls, but I was sorry to hear of young Lord Robert’s passing.”

“As were we all.” Royce sighs, a regretful, pitying sound. “But not even the Eyrie can protect its men from illness. Young Robert was quite sickly all his life. It was, sadly, only a matter of time, and yet we’ve mourned him greatly. His death hit his companion hardest of all. The poor dear is only beginning to recover from her grief.”

Jon nods in understanding, but he very much doubts Royce’s claim. He had never met the young lord himself, but he’d heard enough tell of the boy’s demanding, impossible-to-please countenance to believe that anyone would grieve his loss longer than it took to bury his bones. But out of respect for the dead and the Vale itself, he does not say so.

“And who might she be?” Jon’s eyes scan the courtyard again, lingering perhaps too long on that blown candle flame. “His companion?”

“Alayne Stone.” Royce gestures with a surreptitious hand, but even so he indicates precisely who Jon hoped he might. Now he won’t have to pry for information, as the natural progression of conversation leads Royce to tell him everything he needs to know about the girl. “She loved the boy like a brother, although I must say Robert was quite taken with her. Had he been well enough to live and rule, I’m sure he would have taken her to wife. And a fine one she’ll make. Indeed, she’s engaged to be married to the Vale’s heir presumptive—well, heir apparent now, as it is—Harrold Hardyng.”

 _Married?_ Jon’s mouth forms a hard line. _I think not._

“Who arranged such a match?” he wants to know.

“Why, her father.”

 _Her father is dead._ “And who might that be?”

“Lord Petyr Baelish.” Royce gestures again, this time to the slightly smirking man standing beside the girl who calls herself Stone. “I understand your concern, Your Grace, but you know better than anyone how high a bastard can rise. And I can assure you, Alayne is as worthy a lady as any.”

Jon snorts his acquiescence. He has no doubt that this _Alayne Stone_ is fit to rule; she’d been born for it. Just not _here_ , hidden away in the mountains beside an heir. Her place is in the farthest reach of the North beside _him_. For when the rumors had begun to circulate that Sansa Stark lived, Jon’s bannerman had made their demands of him: The eldest daughter of their late liege lord would wed their king, the Targaryen prince who calls himself Snow.

 _There must always be a Stark in Winterfell._ Bran and Arya were once more safe within the walls of their ancestral home, but Sansa was the only heir willing and able to ensure the succession of the Stark line. Her siblings had survived the wars to return home, but Sansa remains the key to the North, and so the North had quietly conspired for her return.

And when Jon’s gaze catches hers once more, something within him—something perhaps dark and twisted that had manifested upon his resurrection, for who could embark upon a stolen second life without a bit of death following along?—awakens, and he _wants_ her.

“Might I make her acquaintance?” Jon requests of Royce, eyes still on her like they mean to eat her alive. “I’d like to know who’s holding court over the territories.”

“I’m sure Lord Baelish would be happy to arrange an audience,” Royce assures him. He catches the glint in the younger man’s eye, something like a spark of bright violet in the depths of wintry grey. “Should Lord Hardyng be in attendance as well?”

One corner of Jon’s mouth turns up in a rather uncharacteristic grin as he focuses his attention back upon Yohn Royce. “I don’t see why not.”

Royce nods his assent. “Of course, Your Grace, I will speak to Lord Baelish posthaste. Shall I show you to your chambers first?”

“Yes, thank you.” Jon makes to follow him into the castle, but chances another look over his shoulder as he ascends the steps.

Alayne Stone is watching him, lips pressed together and eyes slightly narrowed, and it’s as though Jon is looking at a memory: _She used to look at me like that when we were children_ , he thinks, when he’d done something to annoy her. He’s not sure what he’s done to pique her usually even temper this time, but as he steps over the Eyrie’s threshold, he knows what he means to do.

The Free Folk _had_ taught Jon how to steal a woman, after all, and this must be the gods’ reason why.


	2. and i wanna make nice (now that you’re back to me)

Lord Baelish does not immediately consent to a private audience, but his refusal is doused in apologies and promises.

“My daughter is a cautious young woman,” he tells Jon. “You understand, I’m sure, her reservations. Despite your newfound status, you were raised much in the same way as she. Alayne knows her place.”

“Aye, I’m sure she does,” Jon agrees. His tone suggests that he knows more than he’s willing to let on, but Petyr recognizes the flare of knowledge. “And I’m sure _you_ understand, Lord Baelish, that I cannot in good conscience leave any of the kingdoms in the hands of those who refuse to see me. If the Vale wishes to maintain peace and independence from the North, then I must insist upon meeting Lord Hardyng _and_ his lady.”

 _His lady…_ Jon does not relish the phrase as it tips from his tongue. That dark and twisted something in his gut stirs at the thought, but he manages to temper it for now. Not forever, he is sure, but he won’t get further than he is now if he goes mad with jealousy first. _They’re not wed yet_ , he reminds himself. And even if they were, that would hardly stop him.

Petyr offers a small but accommodating inclination of his head. “Indeed, Your Grace. Alayne would not refuse you entirely. She only wishes to meet you first at the feast tonight, and then later you might inquire after her to discuss the Vale’s rule. With myself and Lord Hardyng present, of course, as I couldn’t very well leave my daughter alone with—forgive me—a Targaryen prince.”

The hairs on the back of Jon’s neck stand up and his knuckles flex. Lord Baelish has fanned the flame that lives inside him, but Jon will not give the man the satisfaction of the reaction that begs for release.

“Excuse my impertinence,” Petyr continues, “but Rhaegar had a reputation for plucking roses for his own ends, did he not?”

“ _One_ rose, my lord,” Jon says. “My mother. They say he started a war for a Stark woman, but I’ve never heard anything about him seeking out a Stone. So if that’s your concern, well, clearly you have nothing to fear from me, do you?”

Petyr’s answering smirk is a sneaking, slithering thing. “Perhaps not, but one can never be too safe. Better men than you have fallen victim to my daughter’s charms.”

“I don’t doubt that, Lord Baelish,” Jon tells him, much to Petyr’s satisfaction. _But I’m better than you think I am._

It is of little consequence to Jon to wait until the evening. He would have preferred to get the girl alone, but it seems that not even a private audience would grant him that. So he’ll simply have to make do with what he’s given. He’s done as much in the past, and faced tougher odds besides.

At least, that’s what he thinks—until he sees her again.

His stolen glances in the courtyard may have been lingering, but they were still cursory compared to how he’s free to look upon her now. In the Eyrie’s crowded hall, there are too many distractions—the food, the drink, the music, the heady tang of the coming spring in the air—for anyone to pay mind to how Jon looks his fill of the girl promised to another when she’s meant to be his.

She is not the girl he remembers from so many turns of the moon ago; she’s not the girl he had known in his first life. She is a fine woman grown from the haughty child of his past. Gone are the airs of pretension, of superiority, replaced by a quiet humility that somehow does not diminish her self-assurance. She breezes into the hall as though she owns it—as though she owns the whole world; and perhaps she does.

She is ethereal in the candlelight, the jewels at her throat and ears catching the setting sun outside the Eyrie’s high windows. Her skin is moonbeams, her eyes the ocean, and there is fire beneath the soft earth of her hair that’s braided and curling down her back. Her gown is simple and soft grey, but the skirt flashes in hues of white when she turns.

 _Stark colors_ , Jon thinks, as if he’d needed further confirmation.

There is a laugh on her lips as she talks to a friend, and Jon nearly whimpers for the way he wants to swallow the sound.

But he did not come here to pine.

It is Lord Baelish who introduces them, with a disingenuous smile and a proud sweep of his arm: “Your Grace. My daughter, Alayne Stone.”

She dips into a curtsy that Jon remembers—fluid and flawless, as perfectly executed as anything else she’s ever tried her hand at. She offers a smile far warmer than her false father’s, and there is a reservation in her eyes that most would take for shyness. But Jon sees the way they flash, and he knows it’s a warning. Of what, precisely, he can’t be sure; he only knows that he doesn’t wish to cross her now.

“Your Grace,” she greets in that lilting voice he’d so often recalled in song. He wonders if she’s found cause to sing since they were last home. “Welcome to the Eyrie. I trust your stay has been satisfying so far?”

“It has.” Jon wastes no time in offering his hand. “More satisfying still if I could trouble you for a dance.”

She casts a glance at Lord Baelish, who responds with the minutest of nods. Jon wonders if he was meant to see this exchange between them, but it’s no matter when Alayne smiles again and takes his arm. He leads her to the floor, among the throngs of couples already enlivened with the dance. Hidden among the crowd, holding her close in all the noise and gaiety, is as alone as he’s going to get her for now.

Although he’d improved, Jon had never been the best dancer. The trouble always begins with where he’s meant to touch her, but thankfully—and as he knew she would—Alayne takes the lead.

She places his hand at her back, and hers upon his shoulder. She takes his other hand in hers, held aloft, and no sooner are their fingers intertwined than does Jon pull her flush against him, the sweet citrus of her hair overcoming him as he mouths at her temple:

“Alayne? That’s a pretty name.”

Long ago—in another lifetime—she had told him to win a lady’s favor this way. Now, tonight, the pace of her heart picks up, beating to the tune of _He knows he knows he knows_ —but her voice is cool when she tells him, “Mind your hands, my lord prince. My father’s watching.”

Jon leaves his hands where they are—one tangled with hers, and the other several inches lower than she’d placed it on her back—and begins to step into the dance, but he lets her lead from there. “And your intended?”

 _Smitten but stupid_ , she wants to say, but doesn’t yet dare. “Lord Hardyng is a skilled swordsman. Is that what has you worried?”

“I’m not worried,” Jon laughs, and tugs her closer to prove it. He can feel her wild heartbeat, feel her body yield beneath her pretty, dove-grey skirts. His voice is low in her ear when he says, “Or haven’t you heard, my lady? I’m the most skilled swordsman in all of Westeros.”

 _He’s confident_ , she notes with some surprise. _Cocky, even._ Not like Joffrey, whose streak of cruelty spoiled him; nor like Harry, whose pomposity has no other basis besides his name. But the Jon she remembers had been quiet, unassuming, and brooding if left alone for too long. Now he’s stepped back into her life in a whirlwind of dark experiences but nevertheless good humor, as though he’s channeling Robb’s spirit while still retaining her father’s honorable reserve.

But there is little honor to be found in the way that he holds her now.

“A skilled dancer, too,” she observes aloud in her efforts to escape her own thoughts. That’s different, too; the Jon she had known couldn’t follow a step to save his life, no matter how she tried to teach him.

“My aunt insisted I become accustomed to all manner of courtly pursuits,” he explains. “Said it was the only way I’d find a willing wife, and she wanted heirs.”

 _Daenerys Targaryen, the Dragon Queen lost to her own quest for the Seven Kingdoms like all those before her…_ “I heard tell that your aunt took her dragons to battle and died with them.”

“Aye, that she did,” Jon allows. There is little grief to be heard in his voice; he had known his aunt for a short time, and he’d found family with the Starks long before he knew of her, besides. “But first she made me learn to dance. Fortunately I did know _some_ steps, thanks to a lady I used to know.”

His thumb caresses Alayne’s wrist; he feels her pulse skip, despite the evenness of her words: “This lady of yours, she was an adequate enough teacher, I take it?”

“Remarkable,” Jon corrects her, “only I was hopeless.”

 _You weren’t_ , she thinks, and says, “Well you’re certainly not hopeless now.”

“Not with dancing, perhaps,” he agrees, lips dragging lightly against her temple, “but in other things, my lady, I’m afraid I’m a lost cause.”

Alayne’s hand slips from his shoulder to his chest, pushing him back half a step. She feels alive with his breath on her skin, more like herself than she’s felt in far too long, but she’s not meant to be _herself_ just yet. “Forgive me, ser, but you are too familiar.”

“I thought the same of you, _Alayne_.”

Her eyes darken like a seastorm, and her voice loses its lilt when she whispers back, “My intended may not be the most skilled swordsman in all of Westeros, but he is still _here_.”

Jon grins. “Shall I challenge him to a duel, then?”

Something within her breaks, and the floodgates to her past burst open under the cheeky gleam in his eye. She lets him close the space between them, if only to lower her voice so no one else might hear when she snaps, “I don’t remember you being so _insufferable_.”

“Oh, but Alayne—” he spins her out, and brings her back closer still— “we’ve only just met.”

She swears, privately chastising herself for letting him get to her. She hadn’t lost her temper so since she was trapped in King’s Landing, and even then she’d learned when to hold her tongue. But it had been so long, she’d been a lone wolf without her pack, and the first one to find her just so happens to be the one who raises her hackles more than any other.

Is it any wonder she’d lost her finely tuned patience?

Petyr wouldn’t be pleased, she thinks with a grimace. She takes in her surroundings, and her eyes catch him at the other end of the floor, deep in conversation with Harry. They’re shooting looks her way, so there is little question as to what they are discussing. She doesn’t imagine that Harry either notices or cares how tight Jon’s hold on her is, but their proximity may be raising Petyr’s suspicions. He’ll want to know what Jon means to do with her, but even _she_ doesn’t know, so what could she tell him when he inevitably asks? Perhaps she is safer in ignorance.

The dance ends, but segues so seamlessly into another that Jon does not disentangle their hands. She wonders if he’d let her go for anything, and he knows that he won’t.

“Do you mean to dance with me all night?” she wants to know, unable to stop her smirk.

It’s a teasing, lovely thing, and Jon wonders how it might taste. Impulsive as he is, he does not give in to the temptation—not here, not yet. The risk is insurmountable, even for him; but there are other chances he might take, and so he does.

“I might, if you’d let me.” His face is once more pressed against the side of hers, his lips at her temple, her breath on his neck. He smells of smoke and pine and so strongly of _home_ that she nearly sobs from the relief of it; she wants to bury her nose in the slope of his neck, but she won’t be so bold as to nuzzle him like the wolves they are out in the open like this.

His hand curls around the back of hers and brings it against his heartbeat, while the other spans her lower back, nudging her into him. She is so soft, so pliant, and Jon growls into her hairline when her hips mold against his.

Jon wants to say her name— _Sansa_ —longs to taste the sound, but he knows better than to do so. _Not_ _here_ , he thinks again, _not yet_.

“Alayne,” he murmurs instead, his voice a gruff rumble that shakes her bones, “might I call on you tonight?”

She leans back to look at him, but his scent follows. Her head is reeling with him, and she’s diving into the deep dark depths of his eyes, even as she tells him with nary a waver, “My father advised me against a private audience with you.”

“I’m not asking your father,” Jon points out. His hand moves from her back to her waist—he glances about the floor—then continues onward to brush her stomach, to trace down the line of her dress until he reaches the cinched belt slung about her hips. There, he fans his fingers to tease himself with the heat he can feel through her skirts, into his breeches, the heat that’s been driving him wild since he first pulled her against him. “I’m asking _you_.”

He can’t let his touch linger long, so he strokes her only once, takes half a moment to revel in the flutter of her eyelids, then grips her waist again.

“Might I call on you tonight?” he asks once more. His voice is so quiet that she thinks, rather than say it aloud, he might have crawled into her thoughts to plant the question there.

Whatever the case, she tells him _yes_ , and feels closer to home in the word than she has since she left.


	3. with your certain charms (over my body, a hand on my thigh)

The first night Jon goes to her chambers, he knocks twice upon the door, only to be pulled roughly inside and slammed against the wall with a dagger to his throat.

“San—” he starts to say, at once startled and a bit offended, but she covers his mouth with her free hand and kicks the door shut.

“ _Alayne_ , Your Grace,” she hisses. “My name is Alayne, and you’ll do well to remember it.”

He huffs against her hand, voice hot and muffled when he demands, “Let me _go_.”

In the flash of her eyes, Jon sees that she’s quite reluctant to take orders from him. But all the same she releases him as roughly as she’d dragged him inside, and turns away to deposit the dagger carelessly upon her dressing table.

 _Perhaps she won’t be as easy to steal as I thought_ , he muses, gaze wary on the weapon. It wouldn’t be wise to say so just yet, so instead he asks, “What did you think you were going to do, slit the crown prince’s throat and get away with it?”

She tosses him an annoyed look over her shoulder. “Forgive me my precautions, _Your Grace_ , but you’re not the first man to show up outside my chambers in the middle of the night.”

His jaw clenches. “Who else?”

“Take a guess,” she drawls. She leans back against the table, arms crossed over her chest; she’s still wearing the gown from earlier that evening, and—damn his dark, hungry thoughts, but Jon wants to rip the laces from her. “Any name you like, I’m sure at least one of them will belong to one of my nightly visitors.”

“Damn it, Sansa—”

Her eyes flash again as she grabs her dagger, her voice a low, dangerous growl: _“What did I tell you?”_

“Sorry!” Jon lifts his hands in surrender, then drops them when she drops the knife. Still he feels the way she cuts into him; her gaze is sharper than any blade. “Gods, you call me insufferable but when did _you_ become so murderous? You sound like Arya.”

At that, her face softens. “How is she? And Bran?”

“They’re well. They’re _safe_.” Jon studies her, searching for some sign that she is or isn’t. Not that it would make much difference; the Vale’s security notwithstanding, he’s bringing her home. “What about you?”

“As well and safe as I’ve been since leaving Winterfell.” Alayne shrugs, then shoots him a look. “That is, if a certain visiting prince could keep his hands to himself when we’re in the middle of a crowded room.”

She expects his grin to be sheepish—it would have been, had they been younger, had they never been parted—but quite the opposite; it’s _wolfish_.

“You seemed to like it.” He mimics her shrug, then steps closer, eyes scanning the room as if there’s anything to be found. “In any case, we’re not in the middle of a crowded room _now_.”

“Oh, what do you mean to do with me, then?” she asks with an arched brow. “Take my maidenhead before my husband-to-be can have it, then go on your merry way back to Winterfell while I deal with the fallout during my bedding ceremony?”

Jon scowls. “There’s not going to be any bedding ceremony—” _except for ours_ — “and I’m not leaving you here. Why do you think I came at all? You can hide all you like, but people still _talk_ , and they’ve been saying you’re alive. Or what did you think, I wouldn’t recognize you? I’d see you standing here, bold as brass, looking at me like I’ve spilled cider on your favorite dress again like I did when you were thirteen—”

“If you don’t want me to be angry with you,” she cuts in, “then don’t bring _that_ up.”

“Maybe I _do_ ,” he challenges. There are only three steps between them, and Jon takes them until his knees knock hers, forcing her to sit atop her dressing table. She scowls up at him, but he brushes a thumb up her cheekbone like he’s not afraid she’ll bite it off. “Maybe I do want you angry, _Sansa_ , because I’ve been furious ever since I set off up this damn mountain looking for you. And then I get here, and I’m tired, I’m spent, I’m exhausted, and as soon as I see you all I want to do is _touch_ you. It’s _infuriating_.”

He watches Alayne Stone’s throat bob, sees her skin flush pink, and he nearly groans when her breath stutters onto his face: “Is it true you died?”

Jon screws his eyes shut. His thumb stops its caress down her face and his hand grips the side of her neck, holding her fast when he presses his forehead against hers. He needs to hold her, touch her, he needs to feel something _real_ and _alive_ when he tells her—

“Yes.” His heart nearly stops again when her fingers curl soothingly around his wrist. “Yes, and I haven’t felt the same since.”

The tension breaks. She wraps her arms around him, face buried in his shirtfront where she’s surrounded by smoke and pine and his beating, beating heart. She does not cry, but her body shudders and Jon strokes her hair until it stops.

He doesn’t touch her more tonight. He _wants_ to—gods, but he does—and more than that, he’s meant to bring her home and marry her. He’s going to steal her like the wildlings do, but it’s not so simple. Her hand has been promised, and not even a prince could break that oath without cause; if Jon did, he’d be no better than his father, and he won’t start another war when they’d only just put an end to one.

He is _done_ fighting, until he can find a way to win her.

And so Jon remains in the Vale, extending his visit another day, another week, another fortnight, until the Valemen accept him as something of a permanent fixture. He will return to the North eventually, they know, but there is no reason for them to pry into his business; no one dares ask after it. Not even Petyr Baelish, although the lord does keep a close eye on the prince.

He allows regular audiences between Alayne, Jon, Harry, and himself, to discuss the Vale’s duties and needs. It doesn’t take long for Jon to count Harry as an idiot—the Young Falcon, they call him, as the Northmen had once called Robb the Young Wolf, but there are no further comparisons to be drawn. Still, Jon maintains his courtesies so as not to raise suspicion or ill will, but he’s hard-pressed not to throttle the heir apparent whenever he brushes Alayne’s hair over her shoulder or grasps her knee.

But as throttling isn’t exactly proper etiquette, Jon satisfies himself with laying Harry out in the yard every morning, a wooden sword level with his throat. It’s enough to make Jon wish for Longclaw in his hand, but then, there’s something more gratifying about so thoroughly besting a man with nothing but a block of wood.

“Stop looking at him like that,” Alayne mutters on one such occasion as they watch Harry spar with another opponent.

“Looking at him like what? I’m not looking at him,” Jon protests. “Why would I look at him, I hate him.”

“Then look at something else,” she demands, but in a wholly unassuming tone. She brushes his elbow with feather-light fingertips. “Look at me.”

Jon bites back a grin but doesn’t turn to face her, simply because he doesn’t think he’d be able to take it. Instead, he murmurs out of the corner of his mouth, “If I look at you, I’ll lay you out and take you right here in the dirt.”

She pinches him.

They have settled into this, a comfortable familiarity that Jon sometimes worries over. Perhaps there is some truth to what she’d said on his first night in the Vale—he _had_ been too familiar with her; at least, so far as anyone watching might be concerned. Jon Snow doesn’t know Alayne Stone well enough to treat her as such; indeed, no prince should look upon a bastard girl the way he does.

But he had been a bastard once, too; and, truthfully, she had never been.

Regardless, they are careful, if occasionally carried away. His hand ghosts across the small of her back, and he leans close to whisper in her ear. He glances this way and that, then brushes his fingertips across the back of her hand. She smooths her hand over his thigh under the table, inching higher and higher, until Jon is forced to stifle a groan into his cups and she moves away. He’d sooner grab her wrist and hold her there, but… _Not here, not yet._

They linger on gazes and touches, but Jon is royalty and Alayne is a beauty, so who wouldn’t look upon them as they do each other? If anyone wonders, they say nothing of it.

Beneath Jon’s gaze, his touch, his mint-sprig breath on her cheek, Alayne feels secure and free all at once. Every day Petyr tells her that now’s not the time, that she must wait to reveal herself and return to the North, to restore it to its former glory, but she longs for home—and with Jon, she feels as though she is already there.

They spend their nights together in her chambers, but he doesn’t try to touch her the way he did during their dance. It’s as though he’d been granted that one delicious moment of dishonor, one spark of insanity, and then she’d jarred him back to his senses with a dagger to his throat. She doesn’t regret her own moment of clarity in doing so; she only wishes they could move past it.

_If I look at you, I’ll lay you out and take you right here in the dirt._

A pleasant tingle alights in her body, and she wonders how she might make him say such things to her again. She wonders how she might make him _act_ on them.

_As soon as I see you all I want to do is touch you._

But he hadn’t. Not like that. Nothing more than teasing brushes of his fingertips upon her, which are thrilling and frustrating in equal measure, until suddenly she’s alone and aching in her bed and it isn’t _fun_ anymore.

_Maybe I do want you angry, Sansa._

Alayne remembers the way he’d ground out the words, the way he’d stood over her and he’d smelled like cold but the heat had _radiated_ from him. She’d been pulsing with it since he’d taken her to the floor, since he’d pulled her so close that every line of his body had fit into hers. She had never _wanted_ anyone this way, not like this, and he seemed determined to drive her mad with it.

She does not wait for him in her chambers. She abandons the room an hour before he usually comes to her and heads to the guest corridor; the halls are quiet and she is nimble on her feet, so her silk slippers make hardly a rustle against the stone floors. Her heart is wild in her chest and there is an ache everywhere else—an ache for his voice, his hands, for the way that he holds her when no one is watching and when everyone’s around—

Jon answers her knock as soon as her knuckles meet the cherry wood. It’s as though he’d been waiting for her to come, even though he always comes to her.

He blinks, eyes like ash in the torchlight.

“San—” he starts to say— _How many times do I have to tell him?_ she wonders, but it doesn’t matter. What he calls her makes no difference. Not tonight. Not when they’re alone.

Before he can say anything more, before his chest can hitch again and he can utter another breath, Alayne catches his collar in her hands and swallows her name on his tongue.


	4. baby, wanna feel you cross the line (so send me down)

There is no hesitation in the way that Jon’s mouth surrenders to hers. He responds with such immediate urgency, it’s almost as though he’s been kissing her since he dismounted his horse in the Eyrie’s courtyard, and he’s only been waiting for her to kiss him back.

He’s tasting her as assuredly as she is him, lips parted so there is no barrier between their ale-soaked tongues, and they taste of barley wheat and vindication.

Jon stumbles backwards into his room, taking Alayne with him. He shoves her forward just as quickly, and his body pressed to hers slams the door shut. The sound echoes on the stone around them, reverberating through the castle and into the cliffside, but however foolishly they don’t care who hears. Jon would gladly wake the Vale with the way that he loves her tonight.

He means to take her away, and who could stop him?

They break apart, breaths ragged and hands seeking. Both of them need this, just a moment to find some shred of sanity before they let it go again, but they can’t stop touching one another, their need for reason be damned.

Jon’s nose traces the shape of her ear as he murmurs into it, “I don’t want to call you Alayne tonight. I don’t want Alayne Stone. I want you, Sansa.”

His fingers caress her waist, bringing her closer even as her reply would drive them apart:

“You want the girl you once called half-sister?”

“Does that matter now?” One of Jon’s hands moves to catch her chin, to force her eyes to look upon his own. He searches her face for any sign of doubt or unease, truth or desire, anything that might tell him how to proceed. “Don’t tell me that after everything that that matters.”

She’s searching his face the same way, and comes to the same conclusion—one she had long since acknowledged; for if she hadn’t, what could she mean by coming to his chambers and kissing him like she needed him to breathe new life into her?

“No,” she whispers. Her gaze drops to his mouth and her fingers curl in his hair, in his shirtfront. “No, it doesn’t matter.”

Jon doesn’t take her mouth again as she’d hoped. Instead, his lips trail over her cheek, her jaw, and it’s a new sort of electricity when he breathes against her skin:

“I don’t need to be Jon.” He covers her eyes. “I don't need to be anyone at all. Just let me touch you like a lover does.”

His words burrow deep within her, and his fingerprints are embedded in her hip bone and the corners of her eyes. She is his, and he is hers.

 _Stone and snow_ , she thinks, but Jon doesn’t want a Stone. He wants Sansa. He wants _her_.

“Yes.” It’s what she wants, isn’t it? Since he’d come to her, that first day and every night that followed, she’s wanted him so much it hurts. “Yes, Jon, touch me—”

Jon’s hand falls from her face. She sees a flash of his eyes before he’s kissing her again, lips nudging hers apart so that he might taste her anew, and she him. He grips her waist and pulls her close, the way he had when they’d danced at his welcome feast, only this time he is urgent and insistent and she does not wish to tell him no.

There will be no reprimands tonight, no warnings that he mind his hands lest her father see the way they wander. Tonight, there is only the two of them; the world may lay outside these chamber doors, but they have no need of it just yet.

They trip over their feet on their way to the bed, never breaking the kiss but for the occasional, hasty draw of breath. Every time, Jon comes back to kiss her harder, deeper; he moans into her mouth and she tugs at the laces of his shirt.

“Tell me again,” she sighs when her back hits the mattress and he clambers over her. He tugs his shirt over his head and her fingers splay against the hot, bare expanse of his scarred chest. “Tell me you want me.”

 _“Sansa…”_ Jon tattoos her name into her skin when he drags his mouth over her neck. He rucks up her nightrail to touch her thighs. “I want you.”

He does not hesitate, nor waste time wondering if this is wrong or right. So much wrong had befallen them since they’d departed Winterfell, since he’d seen her last, that _this_ —lingering lips and fervent fingertips beneath the strip of moonlight that snuck through the half-drawn curtains—can only be right. All the wrong that had been done by them had never felt like this.

Loving Sansa is not a sin, Jon thinks as he peppers teeth and tongue down the line of her body; it’s salvation.

When he reaches the apex of her thighs, so warm and soft under the press of his palms, his gaze flicks up to ascertain hers. She is curious, unsure of what he’s on about, and it makes Jon grin when he opens his mouth against the silk of her smallclothes.

His eyes never leave hers; a thrill sends shivers up his spine when his hot breath hits her hotter core, and her pupils dilate, her chest hitches, in response.

“Can I touch you here?” he wants to know. His thumb joins his lips, and he strokes her through the swatch of material that separates them so maddeningly.

She nods, and Jon rips the silk from her legs and buries his face in her curls. _Red_ , he thinks as he tastes her, red like her hair should be. He’ll scrub the dye from her scalp himself, so that the fire of her hair tumbles over her shoulders, down her back, across his pillows when he takes her in their marriage bed.

But he need not wait for their wedding night to have her. She wants him now, tonight, and he hasn’t the will to deny her when he wants her just the same.

Sansa bites her lip to keep her gratification from echoing about the room. Jon’s tongue is inside of her, worshipping a corner of her that no one’s ever known, one that she’ll share only with him from now on. No one else need know, no one else need have her when she has him.

 _“Jon…”_ she sighs so prettily, and it makes his ministrations all the more eager.

He could make her come like this, but she wants his mouth back on hers. She wants to hear his whispers, to taste her name— _Sansa_ —when he moans it, when he’s taking her, when he’s giving himself over to her because now, despite the odds stacked against her for so long, perhaps _now_ there is someone who might want her for love. And now there is someone she wants for love, too. 

“Jon,” she says again, and takes him by the arms to encourage him to surface from the sweet tang of her that's intoxicated him so completely.

But he heeds her unspoken plea, and she tastes herself on his lips. The kiss is deep and searching, so thorough and thick with feeling. During, Jon’s hand slips between their bodies to touch her; he pushes two fingers inside, and she rides his hand with ever-increasing need.

“You feel so good,” he murmurs into the corner of her mouth. He grinds his hips into hers and she rides him harder, making him growl and nip at her chin. “Seven hells, sweet girl, you’re so good for me. I’m yours, darling girl, I’m all yours, Sansa…”

He keeps saying her name and she almost weeps from relief. Jon says it so sweetly, so reverently, like he can hardly believe she’s real; and, truly, Sansa can hardly believe it herself, but she feels so free—finally free—when Jon chants her name in whispers across her skin.

He makes her peak with the way that he touches her. She pants his name as he breathes words of adulation into their hasty, messy kiss, and he divests her of her nightrail and kicks out of his trousers. He enters her on another sigh of _Sansa_ , and her fingernails leave half-moons in his shoulders when her hips snap in time to his thrusts.

“You’re so beautiful,” he tells her, pushing her sweat-dampened hair from her face as he drops kisses across it. He moves faster, making her breath rip from her chest in a quiet but rapturous gasp. “My beautiful, brave girl… Gods, but I want you with me every night… every day… by my side, Sansa, you belong by my side…”

His adorations, his confessions, are punctuated by his open mouth on her neck. Sansa twists her fingers into his curls and yanks him upwards to take his lips, to give him in action what he’s given her in words—love, and want, and this sudden, all-encompassing need to be his, to make him hers even as he vows that he already is.

“I’m yours, Jon,” she promises, and it makes him fuck her harder, his careful pace turning to reckless abandon. “I’m all yours, only yours—”

“All mine.” His voice is gruff, hoarse, breath haggard as it hits her face. “You’re mine, Sansa. Not Littlefinger’s, not Hardyng’s, I swear I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me.”

He’s kissing her again, mouth dragging over hers, teeth clashing when she meets him with the same frenzy. He’s taking her harder and harder, and she no longer cares who might hear it when her voice rings out _Jon Jon Jon_ —

Because it’s supposed to be them. She knows it in her weary bones, that he’s meant to bring Sansa back to life.

“I’m yours,” he swears for the second time. His pupils are blown, lips swollen and slightly parted, and he’s looking at her as though he means to memorize every line of her face. “I’m yours, Sansa. Always yours.”

_Sansa._

He never stops saying her name. She’s Sansa, and Jon won’t have her believing that she’s anyone else.


	5. like a gambler (only playing to win)

Jon wants to take her home. Sansa wants to go—dearly, desperately—but she doesn’t budge on the subject whenever Jon broaches it, and she knows he’s becoming impatient with her.

“What is it?” he wants to know, day after day, night after night. He traces her cheekbone with the pad of his thumb and searches her face for some tell, any sign. “Tell me what’s keeping you here.”

She tells him it’s Petyr, that he’s dangerous, that he’s an enemy best kept close. But Jon’s not having that.

“I don’t want him anywhere near you,” he growls. He cages her against the stone wall of the abandoned corridor they’d snuck off to after breaking their fast. “He’s not any danger to me. I’ll kill him quicker than he could blink. Or we could summon him to Winterfell and have it done there. I know Arya would dearly love to do the honors. She speaks of little else but slitting the throat of the man who stole her sister away.”

_Her sister, and Bran’s. Winterfell’s lady and the North’s queen. My intended. My lover. My wife._

“Jon…” Sansa’s fingers wrap around his wrist. She can feel the life pulsing within, as though he had never died. “It’s a delicate situation. The Vale has resources we need. We can’t afford a new rift, not when we’ve just had one war after another.”

Her hand slips from his to sweep up his chest, over his heart. Jon covers her fingers with his own, holding her close.

“I need you to wait,” she tells him for what feels like the thousandth time. “Can’t you do that for me?”

“You’re coming back to Winterfell.” Jon leans in, inhaling her scent, lips ghosting over her temple. “Sooner than you might like. I want you home, Sansa.”

His mouth drags down, down, until he’s sucking lightly at her jaw, and he whispers, “I want you in my bed.”

“Whatever for?” she teases. It’s easier this way, when they just want each other without thinking about how complicated it is for them to do so.

Jon smirks, enjoying the game even when his concerns have gone unresolved. He’ll give her what she wants—time, for certain, and although that’s dwindling, his ache for her does not cease. So he’ll give that to her whenever she asks it of him.

“Whatever for, indeed?” Jon plants small, slow kisses along her jaw now. His hands flex upon her hips. “My beautiful, sharp-tongued cousin, who comes so prettily when I steal into her chambers at night, what could I want you in my bed for?”

He sucks hard at her pulse point. Sansa gasps but does not make to push him away, despite her chastising words, “ _Jon_ , you’ll leave a mark.”

“ _Mmmm_ , and I wouldn’t have to worry about that if I kept you shackled to my bed posts,” he says conversationally, all the while pressing his hips into hers so that she can feel how much he wants her. “I could mark you up however I like.”

“I’m sure Arya and Bran would be thrilled,” she remarks, plucking a kiss from Jon’s wandering lips before he busies himself behind her ear.

“If it meant the eventual pitter-patter of Stark pups about the keep, they _would_ be thrilled, very much so, I’d wager.”

Sansa chuckles. “Have you illicitly gotten me with child, Jon?”

“There won’t be anything illicit about it,” he says while his hands caress the front of her dress, “not once we’re wed.”

“Once we’re—” Sansa blinks in an attempt to clear it of the lust that had been creeping up on her beneath Jon’s skilled fingertips and tongue. _“What?”_

Jon lifts his head to look at her, pupils blown wide and setting her insides aflame. He drags a finger across her exposed collarbone, and his other hand slips from her breast to her hip and back again, kneading her tense flesh into submission.

“The Northerners want you home, Sansa. They mean for you to take me to husband,” he explains, voice deep and steady, “and I mean to take you for my wife.”

“You… you want to marry me?” _For love?_

Jon smiles. There is nothing teasing in his tone now, only ardent sincerity and earnest desire.

“Aye, I want to marry you. I want you in my bed with me, every night and when I wake every morning. I want you by my side, ruling with me. The North needs their queen and I need _you_ —” He kisses her then, taking her mouth with such passionate force that the stone wall behind her embeds itself into her spine. “Desperately, Sansa, I need you like I need to breathe.”

She takes his mouth this time, swallowing his words so that they spill and pool in the pit of her stomach. Jon pins her against the wall, his tongue delving between her lips to taste every corner of her. He intertwines their fingers and squeezes, hard, a silent promise that he won’t relinquish her heart.

“I love you,” he murmurs. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I do. I love you, more than—” Sansa is taking breaths so deep that she might have been drowning. “Jon, I didn’t believe such things were meant for me anymore—”

“Anything you want, Sansa,” he vows, kissing her once more, like he’ll never have his fill of her, “it’s yours. I swear it. Just come home with me.”

She promises, as he knew she would, but she has a monster of her own to slay before they steal away to Winterfell.

“Jon, I need to see if he’ll let me go.” Sansa need not utter his name for Jon to know she’s speaking of Petyr Baelish. “I need to know if we can trust him, or how I can be rid of him for good.”

“He could be a powerful ally,” Jon relents, although he doesn’t truly believe it (nor, he thinks, does Sansa), “or I’ll take Longclaw to his neck. Agreed?”

Sansa nods, and Jon seals their pact with a kiss upon her palm. 

 

* * *

 

Once, Sansa was nothing but Petyr’s protégée, his prize, a toy who would parrot his meaningless words like the pretty little bird she used to be. But that’s not who she is anymore—Jon had spread her wings with little else but his touch; and now, with the possibility of escape so achingly near, Sansa sees Petyr’s promises for what they are, for what they’ve always been:

Lies. Nothing but pretty little lies, meant to keep her upon this mountaintop forever.

He keeps telling her that the time’s not right. _But not right for whom?_ Sansa wonders as she surveys the man masquerading as her father.

“Arya and Bran are at Winterfell. It belongs to the Starks once more.”

Sansa relays the news as though it’s only a passable bit of gossip that had piqued Alayne’s interest enough to share with her dear father. But she cannot keep the accusation from her voice when she says her family’s name, and it’s this that Petyr takes his own interest in.

“I didn’t know. I’d heard only whispers,” he tells her ( _lies, always lies_ ), “and I wouldn’t jeopardize your safety for the sake of a rumor. I don’t know that it’s to be believed, even now.”

“You think the prince a liar?” Sansa stops herself from scoffing, but only just.

“I think him infatuated,” Petyr counters. “He’d say anything you’d like to hear.”

“How would he know what Alayne wants to hear?” Sansa shoots back, reminding her father of this charade he’d orchestrated in the first place. “Why would Alayne pay any mind to the goings-on at Winterfell?”

“I might ask you the same, sweet daughter.”

It’s the smirk that does it, that smarmy twitch of his lips that has Sansa dearly wishing she could slap him.

“If Sansa Stark is meant to return home, perhaps she should go.”

“Without the support of the Vale? The war may be over, sweetling, but there is no telling when another will start again.” Petyr’s smirk is replaced by a simpering, pitying smile that doesn’t reach his eyes—pools of fathomless beady black. “Winterfell has a long way to go before it stands as tall as it once did, under the guidance of your mother and father.”

This time it’s Petyr who breaks character. Sansa snatches the opportunity to use her true self—her identity, her birthright—against him.

“And shouldn’t I be there to oversee it, as my mother before me?”

“You have a wedding to attend to,” Petyr reminds her. “Your betrothed won’t bid your return to the North until you solidify the alliance you promised.”

 _That’s not my wedding anymore_ , Sansa thinks as Jon’s visage swims to the forefront of her mind.

“Perhaps Lord Hardyng isn’t fit to be Warden of the North.”

_Not when Jon holds court at Winterfell, not when my family has taken back what is ours and our kingdom has sent their prince searching for me._

“You would break your engagement?”

“My siblings have come home. The North is theirs.” _Ours._

“Siblings,” Petyr echoes, still simpering. “Really, only one brother… and a cousin. Tell me, sweetling, is it he for whom you would run away North?”

Sansa will not rise to the bait.

_We could summon him to Winterfell and have it done there. I know Arya would dearly love to do the honors. She speaks of little else but slitting the throat of the man who stole her sister away._

“You’ve forgotten my sister has returned to Winterfell as well,” she says, unable to forgive that particular and purposeful slight.

“A girl no more than sixteen—the second daughter, no less—is of no consequence to me.” Petyr waves a careless hand. A careful man full of careless gestures. “She would only challenge your claim, dearest. We can see her easily taken care of, should you wish.”

Sansa grits her teeth behind closed lips, and she imagines what Jon said, imagines it to be the truth of Littlefinger’s downfall: _Arya would slit your throat in your sleep, before your eyelids could so much as flutter, you would be dead and they would never open again._

But Petyr is not privy to her dearest of fantasies, and so he continues as though she is not willing him to drop dead where he sits.

“No, what concerns me, sweetling, is your cousin. Such an earnest young lad, is he not? So eager to see you pleased… He’s formed quite the attachment to Alayne, haven’t you noticed?”

The smile he bestows upon her now is tightly-wound; it looks almost painful.

_Just as well. Let him suffer._

“But Alayne has promises to uphold, and regardless of what you’ve heard of him, Ser Harrold is a much better match. Jon Snow, well…” Petyr’s laugh is flat and humorless. “His affections for you notwithstanding, I fear they are nothing more than a passing fancy. He is the crown prince of the realm, to be called upon in times of great need. A war hero, but not a suitable husband for my sweet daughter. If you gave yourself to him now, he would leave in the dead of night, back to his Northern kingdom. He is nothing more, truly, than a fickle, foolish man’s son, who will prove to be just as fickle and foolish in time. The Northerners won’t abide by a Targaryen’s temper for long, as I’m sure you realize.

“He cannot make you a queen, my dear, he wouldn’t,” Petyr says, and Sansa can almost see the saliva dripping from his teeth, “but _I_ —I will ensure your place at Winterfell, as I’ve promised.”

Sansa sees nothing but red, yet she sits demurely all the same. She’s learned well, to appear unaffected even as her stomach churns and bile rises in her throat and the blood is pounding, thundering in her ears. Petyr needn’t know—he never saw her for more than a pretty trinket; he’d never see her as anything else, anything more.

_The North needs their queen and I need you. Desperately, Sansa, I need you like I need to breathe._

The North has petitioned for her return. Her family has been waiting for her. And Jon… Jon wants her. Not her claim or her title—he wants _her_ , for love, because she is more than a pretty trinket with all the frills and baubles to match.

She is Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and Jon Snow is going to see her safely— _victoriously_ —home.


	6. now that you’re mine (do right by me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: so i was struggling over the final two chapters for a couple of days, and realized it was because i really only needed -one- more chapter to cap this thing off. very sorry if that disappoints anyone—i added a lil dash of smut to make up for it ;) (and okay it got more romantic than raunchy but like. let me live!!!) 
> 
> p.s. hot tip: the opening scene here, in which sansa reflects on her time with and love for jon, pairs nicely with calum scott’s “you are the reason,” i’m just tellin you

The night air is balmy and sweet as it swirls into the open window of Sansa’s chambers. It kisses the candle flames so they flicker and wink, casting joyous shadows upon the burnished grey walls.

She watches them, a lazy smile on her lips as the dancing fires make her think of her first dance with Jon, on a night much like this some moons ago. He had been so self-assured on the floor, so passionate in her chambers later and yet so gentle with her… Sansa thinks he may have loved her, even then, and she’s sure that’s when she’d loved him, too.

Her fingers break the surface of her bathwater, decorated with rose petals that float atop it to leave her skin scented and soft, and her hand drifts along her thigh as she thinks of him.

Of Jon.

 _Someone brave and gentle and strong…_ Her father’s words had stayed with her all these years, ever-present and yet dimming with each passing season and every man who seemed hell-bent on proving that no such man existed. Sansa had all but given up hope on her _true_ , dearly departed father’s promise; she had given up on what she once assumed to be an inevitability, and she had given up on the belief that she deserved it at all.

 _There are no heroes_ , she had thought, miserable and despondent and without a hope in this cold, cruel world.

And then Jon had ridden in on his dapple-grey steed, and he’d taken her world by storm. She heard bells ringing the day that he had dismounted in the Eyrie’s courtyard and his eyes had locked on hers, and all those days that followed.

He had saved her, when she’d nearly run out of ways to save herself. She had perhaps never expected this to be her song—her once bastard half-brother braving a mountain to save her, and such a song on its own would not have satisfied the woman Sansa has become. Deep in her heart she had grown weary of maidens awaiting their knights, but now she sees that she hadn’t waited on anyone. Not truly. She has saved herself time and time again; had she not, she would not have survived thus far.

She has been alone for so long—taken prisoner and taken away, shunted from one captor to the next, always reminded of her position and her birthright, thoughts of home used against her to taunt her or entice her, to compel her to behave prettily and do as she’s told, so that even her own identity did not belong to her anymore.

But then Jon had come, and he had known her as _Sansa_ from the start. Everything they had done had been left up to her discretion—when he’d taken her into his arms; when he’d taken her to bed; when he’d waited, for days and nights on end, for her to come away North with him. He’d left it all unto her hands, and he had known that she would be right in her decisions.

She is not only a queen in name, or all the luxuries such a title provides, but in the way that her prince regards her.

He has given her everything she’s ever wanted. The last person she would have thought to take her dreams and spin them into gold, had done so with nary a thought to do otherwise. He’d come to the Vale for _her_ , with no intention for anything else.

Is it any wonder that she should love him so?

Palms rubbing circles onto her thighs under the soothing warm water of her bath, Sansa is thinking of him—dark eyes, soft touch, low voice murmuring sweet vows—when the door to her chambers opens with a long slow _creak_.

She turns, expecting one of the maids, and finding him instead.

Jon’s smile is so bright, it could light this night-darkened room far better than any candle. His gaze devours her even as he bars the door behind him.

“Evening, my lady,” he greets her, voice husky and not at all as gentlemanly as his words might suggest. He _wants_ her. Sansa’s bones tingle and her blood sings as he strides towards her, all purpose and no propriety. “I’ve come to steal you, the wildling way.”

His eyes spark with mischief, and so Sansa finds it easy to reply with some humor and collection when she says, “Accosting a lady while she’s naked in the bath is not, to my understanding, the wildling way.”

She looks about the room, searching, but her smile never wavers, for she has never felt so safe as she does with Jon. “Where's my dagger?”

“Here.” Jon raises her weapon of choice (he must have swiped it some time earlier, no doubt, Sansa thinks with a grin), and leaves it atop the nearest table. “Let’s call this _my_ way, then.”

“And who are you,” Sansa wants to know as he reaches the tub where she lay, “to have a way to steal me?”

“Hmm...” Jon sighs, falls to his knees, and dives his hands into the water to reach her naked skin. Hands on her shoulders and mouth behind her ear, he murmurs, punctuating every one of his self-imposed titles with a languid kiss, “Your lord husband… your lover… your _slave_ …”

“You’re amorous this evening,” Sansa notes, although Jon is amorous with her always. It thrills her to recognize it—the attention this man laves upon her, all so he might give her pleasure in doing so.

“I’m trying to convince you to run away with me.” His mouth, which has been working at the back of her neck, tilts upwards in that grin she so often inspires. “I thought you might appreciate a bit of romancing.”

One of his hands trails downwards, from her shoulder to caress a petal-softened breast. He moans, short and soft, into her damp hair.

“My lady, I’m sure you plan to kill me,” he half-laughs, half-groans, as he pull his hand away and she whines at the loss of contact. He chuckles this time, deep and a little strangled. “I have something for you.”

Aloud, Sansa wonders if that something is his touch. Jon swallows and blushes—an even greater thrill to Sansa than his bold confidence, truth be told—and he tells her yes, but not yet.

He has something else that might please her tonight, before they leave this castle for their own.

Jon had secured the assistance of one of Sansa’s companions, Mya Stone, who had procured for him a salve to rid the dye in his lady love’s hair. He assures Sansa that Mya does not yet know the details of her identity, but who wouldn’t be eager to help the crown prince in whatever task he asked of them?

“Mya will be pleased,” Sansa assures him, thinking fondly of her friend. Once the details of her escape from the Vale with Jon become common knowledge—as they will, for no secret in Westeros remains so for long—she’s sure that Mya will _whoop!_ with triumphant laughter, and Sansa hopes to host her at Winterfell as soon as such an occasion is possible.

Not for the first time, Jon promises to give her whatever she wishes, and—as Sansa should have known from the moment the Eyrie’s gates opened to receive him—he washes the drab brown dye from her hair: The final vestiges of Alayne, scrubbed away at Jon Snow’s hand to dissipate in Sansa Stark’s rose-petal bathwater.

Jon rubs purposeful fingertips into her scalp, wishing to be through with his task so he might busy himself elsewhere, and thinking of her all the while— _Sansa_ —not only the woman before him, but of the girl she once was.

Always so fearless, so adamant and unapologetic in what she wanted. How it must have broken her heart to have those dreams tarnished so. Jon only hopes that he might restore such notions to their former glory. He can’t promise her a song or a story—only to bring her home, and to write a story of their own.

“Are you happy?” Jon asks, the question soft as he pours a fresh pitcher of water to rinse her hair.

“With you,” Sansa swears, and it’s more than enough, more than he’d ever hoped for himself: A place at the Starks’ table, in their home, worthy of the name—and someone to love him, a woman he loves in turn, unprecedented, out of nowhere, yet true all the same.

 _I am hers, and she is mine…_ Jon thinks, and _finally_ he feels alive.

He drags his fingers through her renewed red hair, marveling at the color, at who she is beneath it all. Sansa leans back against the tub’s edge, silently begging for his hands, his mouth, his vows of love and evermore and whatever else he might wish to give her.

 _Everything_ , he whispers, with his mouth on her neck and his hands breaking the still water to reach her waist, her ribcage, and the heat awaiting him between her legs. _I’ll give you everything._

Jon parts from her only to remove his clothing. His jerkin, tunic, trousers, all fall to the floor in a rush of leather and cotton upon stone before he joins her. The bathwater sloshes and spills when Jon leans forward in the tub to kiss her, to take her mouth as he’d taken her whole body, her heart, her _self_ , and breathed new meaning into the title she’d been born into, the birthright that had since been stripped away.

Jon gives it back to her—who she is, what she’s wanted—now, in this metal basin of rosewater, as the near-spring air tinged with honeysuckle and forget-me-nots tickles their naked skin, and Jon’s fingerprints take up residence in Sansa’s thighs.

“You’ll come away with me tonight, won’t you?” he begs, his words warmer than the water and the air that envelops them as Sansa is wrapped up in his breath, his lips on her neck. “My horse awaits us in the yard whenever you wish to go, should you wish it tonight.”

Sansa knows he means it. They could easily cast the brown dye in her red hair once more; they could have tonight, and in the daylight pretend that nothing transpired between them, as they’ve pretended for so many days on end.

But Sansa has pretended far too long now, dealt in lies and falsities, and now Jon wishes to give her truths. So she cards her hands through his wet curls, and she doesn’t want to pretend anymore.

“I’ll steal away with you,” she tells him, lips pressed to his temple as he leans further into her, “but first, take me, make me yours again.”

For a moment, Jon’s eyes catch hers. He is so earnest, so joyful and relieved, so enamored, so… _So much more_ , he decides. He is so much more when she is by his side.

He kisses her, hard and fast yet with no rush at all, as if they have all the time in the world…

And perhaps now—at last—they do.

As tantalizing a prospect as it is to unlace Sansa’s gown and take down her hair, to push her dressing-robe from her shoulders and ruck up her nightrail, Jon is glad to have her naked in her bath now. He wants her—wholly and completely and _right now_ , and he hates to think of the havoc he might wreak upon her pretty dress if she were wearing one tonight.

He fingers her mound beneath the water, teasing only slightly before he pushes inside of her, letting her moans take the lead to his movements; hard, languorous, measured, reckless—whichever way she thrusts her hips, he’ll give her what she asks for.

When he asks her—breathing the question into her ear as he nips behind it—she tells him _you, you, you_ , and Jon will not deny her anything, least of all himself.

He braces his hands on either side of her hips as she guides his cock inside of her. She is wet, so wet—her cunt, her mouth, her skin, she is drenched for him, and Jon works himself into a frenzy over her. Her gasps are short and sharp, perfectly timed to his thrusts, and he groans into her red red _red_ hair—

“Remember what I told you? You’re mine, sweet girl,” he pants as his hips snap and hers rise to meet him. “Not his. Not anyone else’s. _Mine._ I won’t let them touch you.”

“We’re going home.” Sansa wraps his curls around her fingers, she digs her nails into the space between his shoulder blades. “I’d run with you anywhere.”

And he’d take her anywhere, Jon thinks, and tells her as much while he pulses inside of her. He’d take her everywhere, anywhere she’d like to go, but _gods_ does he want to bring her home. To Winterfell. Where they never should have left, where they both belong.

 _I love you._ Jon says the words like a promise, a vow he’ll never break, because he has something to live for again. 

 _I love you._ Sansa says it back, like the beginning of a song she’d only started to believe in again, because he had written this one just for her. 

 

* * *

 

Jon sits behind her in the cooling tub, toying lazily with the strands of her hair, and he asks her, “What are you thinking of?”

“How much I love you. What you’ve given me,” Sansa says, without missing a beat. She catches one of his wandering hands and places a kiss upon it. “How you mean to make me queen. Fulfilling a silly girl’s dream and loving me all the while.”

He smiles, and chucks her under the chin so that she’ll look at him when he promises, “I’ll be this silly girl’s consort for the rest of my days, and happy for it.”

Jon takes Sansa’s lips with his own, and seals their future. He has made a flirt of her, a lover—and as soon as he can bring himself to leave this bath, he’ll make a bride of her soon enough.

 

* * *

 

It’s the middle of the night, but they hardly bother to stifle their laughter as they run from one corridor to the next, making their grand escape at long last.

They had left a letter on the table in Sansa’s— _Alayne’s_ —solar, signed and sealed with the Stark sigil. Petyr Baelish might have held Jon’s Targaryen parentage over his head like an executioner’s weapon, but Jon had never taken the name or its legacy as his own.

Sansa had debated with the prospect that Jon could end Petyr here, now, out in the Eyrie’s courtyard. But then another part of her—small and petty, Sansa admits, but she imagines well-deservedly so—wants Petyr to sleep soundly tonight and find her missing on the morrow, slipped through his calculating fingers by the hand of a man more worthy than he. She finds deep satisfaction in the thought that Petyr’s own inner demons may tear him apart; and if not… A summons to Winterfell to answer for his crimes is always waiting for him.

With these accusations against Petyr and Sansa’s identity revealed, they do not worry for another war. Harrold Hardyng will find himself another, _willing_ bride, and Yohn Royce will be happy to oust Petyr from his position.

So it is lucky, perhaps, that Yohn Royce is the one to come upon them as they sneak out a window on the Eyrie’s ground floor.

(“The doors are too loud,” Jon had said, “and sneaking out the window is much more the wildling way, I imagine.”)

(Sansa had chuckled melodiously, madly, and she’d told him she’d follow him anywhere, and she wouldn’t break such a solemn vow now that they’d come so far.)

Royce’s eyes widen upon first sight. Jon is halfway out the window as it is, and Sansa’s hand is in his as he assists her in their hasty exist.

“My lady?” the elderly lord questions, startled at the sight of them, and the pair can do more than exchange a look and a smile.

Sansa curtsies, as best she can while Jon is still holding her fast. “My apologies, Lord Royce.”

He pays no mind to her manners—or considerable lack thereof, all things considered—but his gaze is locked on her face, her hair, her hand in the crown prince Jon Snow’s, as though he has just realized what was before him all along.

“Your hair…”

Sansa presses a finger to her lips. “The North remembers. Kindly relay the message to my _father_.”

It is Yohn Royce’s turn to smile. It’s a slow, small, barely-there thing, but Sansa knows this man well enough to know that he’ll let her go with little fuss. In just a moment’s recognition, he knows the duty that has befallen him, far more than Petyr Baelish ever understood—for he had wanted too ardently, too much, a woman who was never meant to be his.

“And what shall I tell him of your return?” Royce queries, amusement etched in the lift of his heavy white eyebrows.

“There won’t be one,” Sansa admits, and swings a leg onto the windowsill; Jon’s free hand palms her calf, bringing her closer to freedom. “You’ll find a letter in my solar, addressed to you, ser, with further details.”

“We’ll be in contact with the Vale again soon, Lord Royce. Await a raven from Winterfell,” Jon adds, hardly able to stop his laughter. The giddiness between Sansa and himself is near impossible to settle; after so long and so many plans and so much consternation, there is only liberation in the way that they take their leave for Winterfell. “And tell Lord Baelish, too, if you would, to expect one as well. A summons, to be tried for conspiring against the North, and kidnapping of its daughter.”

“Forgive me, Your Grace,” Yohn Royce says, with another twitch in his grin, “but are you not guilty of the same crime?”

“Oh, I’m not kidnapping Lady Stone, ser,” Jon says, quite seriously if it hadn’t been for the devilish glint in his eye and Sansa’s accompanying giggle. “I’m only stealing my bride.”

And with that, Sansa slips from the window to join him, and Yohn Royce’s parting blessing is nothing more but a chuckle that matches their own. With Petyr Baelish and Harrold Hardyng to contend with, his battle might be far from over, but there is no need to worry over it now.

_I couldn’t very well leave my daughter alone with—forgive me—a Targaryen prince… Rhaegar had a reputation for plucking roses for his own ends, did he not?_

Indeed he had, Jon thinks as he absconds with Sansa to the courtyard where his horse awaits. The night sky is clear, the air balmy and sweet, and her hand in his is as soft as any rose he’s ever known.

But when Jon helps her into the saddle ahead of him, Sansa’s face splits into another smile, and she is not a rose or any _thing_ to be plucked or had or even stolen as he’d intended upon his arrival:

She is his queen, and he will only take her where she wishes to go.

He’d meant to steal her—Jon reflects as he taps their steed’s sides with his heels, and Sansa’s arms wind around his waist, her lips behind his ear, and they take off down the mountain with nothing but the echo of fheir own jubilation following fhem—but perhaps it is she who stole him, right from the start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: I KNOW a lot of you were rooting to see baeless get totally rekt (tbh who isn’t most days?), but i’d always intended to end this fic on a more lighthearted note: hence what you just read. i may potentially, eventually, write a short epilogue, but as of now i’m happy with what i’ve done with this story. 
> 
> thanks for tuning in, and all your kudos and comments! i don’t usually reply bc i’m That Bitch (for no reason, usually i just don’t know how to express my gratitude so i just write more fic for y’all angels instead) BUT your comments really do make the work worth it!


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